Hypnos is usually depicted as a young man with wings either his shoulders or his brow and is attributed with a horn of sleep (illustrated occasionally as an inverted torch), though sometimes it could just as well be a poppy-stem or a branch dripping water from the river Lethe (Forgetfulness). He was the personification of nightmare, taking the form of huge and scary animals) and Phantasos (“Imagination, Phantasy” – He was the one creating the fake and illusional dreams, and had no animus form), worth noting amongst these dream children Hypnos had many more children with Pasithea, up to 1000 in total one one of those children is Ikelos the only one capable of creating the true dreams that is foretelling within the dream what will come to pass as well as those dreams that feel so realistic that when on waking the host is often confused as to whether or not it was actually just a dream! Later the island of Lemnos, which was sacred to Hephaestus, god of metallurgy became Hypnos’s very own dream-island and here along with his wife Pasithea, the goddess of rest, relaxation, and hallucinations as well as the youngest of the Charites (Graces), they would raise their children who collectively are known as the Oneiroi >Morpheus (“Shape” – The Winged God of Dreams, able to take any human form in dreams), Phobetor (“Fear” – He was the one who created the scary dreams. No light and no sound would ever enter his grotto. His bed is made of ebony, on the entrance of the cave grow a number of poppies and other hypnotic plants. Hypnos himself is said to live in a big cave where the river Lethe (“Forgetfulness”) runs through. Erebus is a place in the underworld like no other, it is the land of eternal darkness beyond the gates of the rising sun, and rises into the sky each night in the train of his mother Nyx. Hypnos lives not in Hades but in another valley of the Greek Underworld of Erebus, with his twin brother Thánatos (Death or “Death Personified”). Homer says in his Iliad that Hypnos appealing to his powerful mother kept Zeus’s fury at bay, she was not afraid of Zeus and would of confronted him with maximum maternal fury. There were occasions that having a mother born from Chaos, saved Hypnos from the wrath of Zeus …it is on more than one occasion we see him fleeing to his mother in fear after tricking Zeus. Nyx is said to be a goddess of such exceptional power and beauty that she is feared by Zeus himself especially when entering into her realm where she is at her most dreadful. Hypnos, the God of Sleep in ancient Greek mythology is a son of Nyx (Night), and Erebos (Darkness) both who stood at beginning of creation and are such Primordial Deities.

Hypnos thanatos morpheus tree